Thread by @Ben_Wray1989

It's that time of year when Scotland's #richlist comes out revealing how inequality is rooted in power, not any nonsense about hard word, innovation, etc.

The one at the top of the pile, the Gordon-Grant family, is the perfect example of this.

THREAD
commonspace.scot/articles/14225…

The Gordon-Grant family have been doing very, very well. No family’s wealth in the whole of the UK had grown faster since the #richlist began, a whopping 5,000% increase in 29 years.

This year the rich list informs us that the family’s wealth has more than doubled in just the past six years, up from £1.4 billion in 2013 to £2.9 billion today. The increase from 2018 to 2019 is an enormous £310 million.

How did they do it? They own William Grant & Sons, which has been producing scotch whisky for over 100 years. Scotch whisky can only be produced in Scotland due to geographic protective indicators. That makes it a very valuable commodity exclusive to Scotland.

The profits per scotch whisky bottle is about 60% - enormous, by any industry standard. With the rise of a global middle class, esp in Asia, there's hundreds of millions of new potential consumers of a luxury good like Scotch whisky. Combine both together = ££££.

Scotch whisky producer's pay alcohol duty, but only on domestic sales. So not on all that new profit from export growth. Add in a powerful whisky lobby and a compliant Scottish political class who only argue for MORE tax cuts for whisky, & you have the Gordon-Grant family.

In return, Mr Gordon is resident in the tax haven of New Jersey, so pays no income tax in Scotland. And he uses his spare cash to donate to Better Together in 2014, and small donations to other No campaigns. That's what pro-indy politicians get for their deference.

And unfortunately pro-indy media has been complicit as well in conflating the interests of the Gordon-Grant family and co with Scotland's national interests, see here: commonspace.scot/articles/13292…

A production tax on each bottle of Scotch Whisky (so including exports) could, according to a Biggar economics report in 2012, raise £1 billion for public services. And since that's 7 years ago, and Gordon-Grant family wealth has doubled in that time, it'd raise much more now.

And of course Gordon-Grant can't threaten to go overseas because Scotch whisky has to be produced in Scotland. So there's no good excuse not to pursue this, which would be a serious anti-inequality measure. Yet all we get is industry cheer leading.

Scottish resources exploited for super-profits by a tax dodger, cheered on by politicians and media. There's always chat about how inequality is bad, but unless vested interests are taken on, it's all crap. Scotch whisky should be an inequality litmus test on politicians. ENDS